The Rosicrucian Digest, November 1953.

It was in 1908 when, as a boy of only sixteen years, I made the acquaintance of Dr Franz Hartmann, Germany’s then foremost mystic. This meeting occurred in Danzig, where was located at that time, one of the most prospering lodges of the Theosophical Society. Though my retentive faculty is by no means above the average, everything concerning the unique personality of that great man is still fresh in my memory. The fact that he produced such an indelible impression upon me was, I think, due to a startling and embarrassing inconsistency, at least to me, between his outward appearance and his true nature.
When I saw him for the first time, he appeared to be a man in the prime of his life, about fifty years old. His ruddy face seemed to give proof of his being in the best of health. One might take him to be a retired officer. All of these impressions, however, were false. He had never been a soldier, was now nearly seventy years of age, and approaching the time of his death. Being well-proportioned, he seemed to be taller. He was of medium height.
I was fortunate enough to listen to several of his metaphysical lectures given at the lodge. What he said was incompatible to how he said it. He never exhibited the slightest emotional feeling. He spoke in a tone unconcerned, aloof, detached and dispassionate, as though he were discussing an arithmetical problem of little account.
Never shall I forget what he once told us, about thinking and feeling he said:

“We experience the world through the medium of our senses. Moreover, we have some reasoning power, and we have emotions. There are two ways of thinking. You may think materially, non-emotionally, as does the mathematician. This kind of thinking often leads us into errors and destruction. I, therefore, prefer the emotional way of thinking. Biologically speaking, emotions are several hundred times older and, therefore much more developed than our human faculty of thinking. It is safer for us to reply on our emotions, in their highest expression, than on our intellect which may lead us astray, through faulty reasoning. The emotional kind of thinking, however, leads us to truth and peace of mind. In its highest form emotional thinking is rapture, is supreme happiness.

Never shall I forget those wonderful hours I was fortunate enough to spend in the company of Madame Blavatsky in Madras,”

said Hartmann.

“Sometimes, she was seated in an armchair utterly motionless, in a kind of trance. At such times, she was instructed by invisible adepts. I sensed their presence overwhelmed by a feeling so exalted, so august, so holy, that I am at a loss how to describe to it. A veil was drawn from my eyes, and I was blessed to have a look into a world infinitely superior to ours.”

A listener at some distance, who could hear Dr. Hartmann’s voice but was unable to understand what he said, would be sure to think he was talking about trivialities. The incongruity between the tone of his words and what they meant was highly perplexing. Considering that somewhat monotonous way he spoke, one would suppose his addresses would have a rather tedious effect on his audience. But strangely, that was not the case. He was a most fascinating orator. To this day, I am unable to explain how he managed to cast a mesmeric spell over those who listened to him. Was it the superiority of his strong personality? Was it the crystal clarity of his arguments? Was it the fact he gave expression to one’s vague and hazy ideas? I do not know. But this I do know: as long as he was speaking, his audience was spellbound.
From infancy, I had been taught to talk to my elders in a friendly way at all times. I was sick of being continually admonished to be kind and friendly. Friendliness did not particularly interest me. I had a lively interest in Truth; and truth is not always a pleasant matter. The slogan “There is no religion higher than the truth” was a watchword after my heart. Maybe this would explain why I was ill-mannered enough to ask Dr. Hartmann in a discussion after one of his public addresses, to give us his opinion about the question: “Did Madame Blavatsky deceive the public with occult phenomena, as was maintained by the Society for Psychical Research, or did he, Dr. Hartmann, regard them as genuine occult fact, if so,—why?”
My rather captious question caused a perceptible tension within the audience.  The question in itself was a brazen effrontery. I was fully aware at that that time. Everybody strained for his reaction. Without evincing the slightest symptoms of being annoyed, Dr. Hartmann answered:

“There are many people who regard Madama Blavatsky as an imposter. I do not blame them. No one of them has seen what I have witnessed. If they had seen even a tiny fraction of what I have seen, they would stop maligning her. One feels absolutely certain that: if the occult phenomena Madame Blavatsky produced  were nothing else but the tricks of a dexterous magician, she might have easily earned fabulous riches as the world’s most outstanding illusionist. However, we have known her living from hand to mouth, poor as a Job, often without a penny to bless herself with. No! she was not a fraud. All of us who have known her intimately agree that here was not a vestige of a mountebank about her. Nor was she a saint. She never claimed to be the Blessed Perfection. I was not bling to her faults and shortcomings; nobody was. On the other hand, she proved herself to be much greater and more perfect than any other human being I came across in all my life. And only that is of consequence to me. The sun is full of huge sports. Do you disdain it for that reason? Or do you look to the sun as the source of all life in spite of its spots? Well, what about Goethe? He made a lot of mistakes, which I am sure, none of our minor poets would have committed. In spite of his shortcomings, Goethe was immensely superior to those who would not commit such mistakes. Just think of that, my young friend.”

While speaking to the audience, Dr. Hartmann seemed to take no cognizance whatever of me as an individual. He conveyed the impression to his listeners that he was interested in fact of eternal importance but that individuals did not mean much to him. His last sentence, however, was different; it was spoken to me directly, and that in such a way that it sounded to me as if he had said, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it your cocky brat!”
I felt deeply ashamed. Even now, forty-five years later, I can but think of Dr. Hartmann as the man who once taught me a painful lesson.
It was in the city of Bremen that I happened to see Dr. Franz Hartmann for the last time. At that time, in the year 1911, if my memory serves me right, there was an International Congress of Theosophists in Bremen, the center of the Theosophical Movement in Germany. The number of the members of the Bremen Lodge of Theosophists ran up to almost one hundred.
As long as the Congress lasted, for three or four days running, there were daily several columns about Dr. Franz Hartmann in Bremen’s newspapers. Hundreds of inhabitants of Bremen saw him and heard him lecture; thousands read about him. He was the central figure o the Congress, the topic of the day. That Theosophy, in its original form, had become a fast-growing movement in Germany, was greatly due to the energetic interest of Dr. Hartmann. Now, here in Bremen, his lifework reached its culmination point. A few months later he passed into transition. His work was done.
And now? Today the Bremen Lodge of Theosophists consist of only a few members I happen to know all of them. Not one of them has seen Dr. Hartmann, not one of them has ever heard that there had been in 1911 a Theosophical Congress in Bremen. To think that Dr. Hartmann is now an almost forgotten man in Germany makes me sad. But I am sure that if he knew that he would not mind at all. His was a rich life, and he did his part.

Note [from the Editor of  The Rosicrucian Digest 1953]: Franz Hartmann, M.D., was the author of An Adventure Among the Rosicrucians (1887); The Life and Doctrine of Jacob Boehme; Paracelsus and other works. He was initiated into the Rosicrucian Order (AMORC) at Basle, Switzerland. It was in the library of the Rosicrucian Metaphysical University that he first met Madame Blavatsky, daughter of a German nobleman, who was devoting her life to the promotion of occult science. He became her personal physician.—Editor.